The Guardian 7 October 2025

Imagine spending a career wanting to play the lead in Annie, to eventually realise you are only good for Miss Hannigan. That is the fate of Sian Silver. Played with verve by Liz Ewing, sporting more sequins than is medically safe, she is a 75-year-old singer whose seasons in the fictional town of Sunthorpe On Sea are coming to an end.

In this bijou lunchtime musical written by actor turned playwright Hannah Jarrett-Scott and actor turned composer Brian James O’Sullivan, she gives us a taste of her routine: bouncy music-hall numbers, delivered with a cheery smile and brassy confidence. [READ MORE]

By Mark Fisher

MARK FISHER is a freelance theatre critic and feature writer based in Edinburgh and has written about theatre in Scotland since the late-1980s. He is a theatre critic for The Guardian, a former editor of The List magazine and a frequent contributor to the Scotsman and other publications. He is the co-editor of the play anthology Made in Scotland (1995), and the author of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide (2012) and How to Write About Theatre (2015) – all Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. He is also the editor of The XTC Bumper Book of Fun for Boys and Girls and What Do You Call That Noise? An XTC Discovery Book (both Mark Fisher Ltd).